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Digger

I thought I was a boymom before. . .but today, I officially earned my “boymom” card. What for, you ask?

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Today, I successfully assembled a CAT loader from a million individually packaged plastic pieces and several bags of super cheap hardware– All. By. Myself. (Daddy, you see–our regular handyman–of course just happened to be out of town for work the day the huge, exciting box showed up.) And who could make an adorable 3-year old wait ANOTHER whole day? Not THIS mom!

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So, I persevered. I squinted at the diagrams that included ZERO EXPLANATIONS. I tried not to cuss. And I thanked my parents silently in my head, over and over, for raising me on a farm and teaching me that I. Can. Do. Hard. Things. (Even if they take a really long time to do.)

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Which in this case, it did. But I did it. As I high-fived my extremely-excited little boy, I asked him if he was surprised that Mommy was able to build his loader for him. He shook his head no and said, “I knew Mommy could do it!” I realized that I had never seen a look quite like the one he gave me just then. It was pure admiration shining in his big blue eyes.

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I am awful glad I savored that moment, because the look changed drastically after I explained to the patient 3-year-old that he had to wait 12 MORE HOURS for the battery to charge.

(Yep–that part was rather anticlimactic.)

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Tonight, we wait. And we will cope by reading all of our favorite digger books in anticipation. (Thank God for digger books!)

Most little boys go to bed with a teddy bear, a tattered blue blankey, or a lovey they have carried around for months. I have offered all of these options to our little man, but he simply isn’t interested.

I guess you could say that Hank has a “lovey”, but his lovey is no cuddly puppy or bear. Hank’s lovey is a digger. And no, not the nice soft stuffed excavator that goes along with his Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site book. Oh, no. Hank goes to sleep at night with a death-grip on a cold, metal skid-steer he affectionately calls “dig-dig.”

Dig-dig and Tractor

You see, our little boy has a love–an obsession, really–for heavy equipment of all kinds. It runs in the family, and he gets to foster his love often; thanks to the good luck that landed him on a Montana farm. Hank bounced around in a dump truck when he was still bouncing around in my tummy; and his affinity for that big huge truck seemed to be born into him from day one.

Digger and Dump Truck

There are days I’m convinced that Hank has hydraulic fluid running through his veins!

Hank’s grandpa owned and ran a heavy equipment dealership for many years before “retiring” as a farmer, and Hank’s daddy sold/rented heavy equipment as well. Both of them can run anything. (And run it well.)

Hank doesn’t just get his love for running equipment from the men in his family tree, though–he also gets a little of it from his mama.

I was lucky enough to grow up on that same Montana farm, with that equipment-loving father who figured both of his kids might as well learn how to run everything on the farm. My big brother and I ran skid steers as soon as we could reach the pedals, and before we could reach them we rode along with dad, seat-belted onto his lap, like Hank does now.

Moving Dirt with Gramps

I’m willing to bet that one day, my little digger-man will end up in the construction industry running something, and I am already behind him on that 100%. I don’t feel the need to push him to shoot for an Ivy League school, or to encourage him to be a doctor or a lawyer. I see how happy that little boy is when he is digging dirt or hauling gravel, and that’s plenty good enough for me!

It helps that I also see how happy his grandpa is–digging dirt or hauling gravel–and I know that it may simply be in their programming. I will encourage Hank to follow his dreams, whether they include construction or not, but I will thoroughly enjoy the fact that they do, right now.

Motor Grading with Daddy

I will let him bring dig-dig to every meal with him as he insists on doing, currently. I will let him scoop up peaches with the bucket of that darn toy, and even let him use it as a spoon now and again. (What little boy doesn’t want to scoop food into his mouth with a bobcat bucket?)

I will let him sit on my lap as we read Diggers Go three times in a row before every nap-time and bed-time, and I will do my best to make the right sounds. And I will let him wear his equipment PJs more than any of the others, because of course, they’re his favorites.

I will do my best to keep a mental note of where each piece of equipment gets left around the house throughout the day, because Hank can’t quite keep track of them all yet.

I will keep handing him off to dad or grandpa; whoever happens to be running something that day.

And most importantly; I will keep letting him go to bed with dig-dig. Because to some little boys, dreams of diggers are much more magical than dreams about anything else.